Train Like a Hamster

Check out this new race-winning training plan with no speedwork, tempo runs, long runs, or cross training! All it takes is 15 minutes of running three days a week for five weeks! Oh...and you have to be a hamster.

I had my dwarf hamster, Peanut, follow this schedule provided by Petco (detailed below; click image to enlarge) in anticipation of its annual Hamster Ball Derby, held this past weekend at Petco stores across the country. Is this like dog racing, you ask? Heavens no. Hamsters are avid runners, some say because they travel long distances to find food in the wild. In captivity, they willingly run in their little hamster wheels and scoot around in their little hamster balls as much as four miles a day.

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Peanut is a fast little critter, so I took her to the Derby to see what she could do. The whole process was very familiar. I registered, signed a waiver, and waited patiently near the start with about 20 other hamsters and their owners (whose average age couldn't have been more than 7).The track itself was four lanes wide and about five feet long.

Peanut napped in her carrier during the first two of five first-round heats and boy, did she miss some action. The hamster derby has to be the only race where a participant can run halfway down the track, turn around and run back to the start, get turned around by their "coach" and STILL win their heat—mostly because their competitors had stopped to groom themselves or snack on treats stuffed in their cheek pouches. Other parts of the "meet" were similar to a sprinting race for humans: there was a false start (an owner let go of the ball too soon) and some people complained about the rules.

When Peanut's heat was almost up, I transferred her to her ball and let her warm up, that is, roll around for a few seconds. She ran in the 4th heat and won handily. I did a fist pump and embarrassingly called her "The Usain Bolt of hamsters" (by virtue of her large winning margin). I put her back in the carrier, where she snuggled in bedding and took another nap. I woke her a little too late for the semifinal where she paused halfway down on the track, but still took second and advanced. In the final, she again smoked the competition, who, I might add, were much larger than her. For her efforts, she was awarded a first-place ribbon, a tiny trophy, and circular hamster track.

Despite her size, Peanut may have had a distinct advantage. She's Russian (a Campbell's Russian Dwarf Hamster, to be precise) and she was, in fact, on drugs (antibiotics for an infection). Drugs have historically been helpful for Russian women competing in track meets. Good thing the USADA wasn't there or Peanut and I could be in the slammer right now.

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Her real secret to success is probably the speedwork she does for fun: sprint in ball or wheel for a few seconds, stop. Repeat until bored.

If only human speedwork was this easy, or this fruitful.

In this spirit, I wonder, have any of you entered your pet in a pets-only race? Did anyone enter a hamster (yours or your child's) in the derby at your local Petco? Have you run a race with your dog (like last weekend's Mutt Mile at the inaugural Coastwise Mile in La Jolla, California)? Let us know in the comments section.

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